Advice please

[TheTamingOfTheShrew]

My dd has told me about her friend being treated badly by her family. She is hit regularly, and they are cruel to her. They monitor her every move, whether it is on the computer or when she goes out. I said to dd that there are places like childline for the girl to go to, anonymously, where she could be given advice, but dd says that the girl is scared of being put into care and won't do it. I know that the family are very very wealthy and the girl is worried about their money being able to influence the authorities should she seek help. Where is the best place to start? The girl is cutting herself on a regular basis and is often in trouble at school. I said to dd that I would ask on here.

The threat of being put into care can be used by abusers to dissuade the victim from telling anyone.

Childline is the number to call, or she could speak to a school councillor if this is an option.

If you feel that this girl is too scared to tell anyone, then you are going to have to do it. Ring the NSPCC or Social Services and tell them what you said here.

Now that you have this knowledge, you do need to take action. You're doing a really good thing by helping her.

Thanks. School councillor is an option but I very much doubt she would go there.

Not wanting to be too much of a devils advocate here, but whilst I think you should take what you've heard seriously, you also need to be aware that there's also a chance that it's either exaggerated or not true.

I say this because we have experienced this with DD2 - in the past she has told friends awful lies about people, not only about people she doesn't know/hasn't met, but family members too, not just little lies but big ones involving physical harm. The friends have then gone to parents/teachers as they have been worried, and of course they have to take it seriously - not to the point of SS, but someday her lies could come to that.

Anyone with teenagers knows what their ability to expand a story is - I could come up with a myriad of stories from DD where normal parenting has been recounted to friends as 'dragon witch from hell parenting', and worse - they use their own actions as a reaction to something you haven't even done! For instance, DD2 once told her friends that we were forcing her to have packed lunch and checking she was eating it because we were concerned she had an eating problem...none of this was true, and the story came the day after she asked us if she could have packed lunch that week .

Equally, it could all be complete truth, you couldn't possibly know, but I have told people in the past and stand by it - if you are concerned about it, call SS, and either it will be proved right, or proved wrong - in some ways I wish someone would call SS about the lies DD2 pedals as I hate knowing there are people out there thinking she has a hard life! If I were in the same position I would report it, I couldn't imagine sitting on the knowledge and a child getting hurt.